On 22 May 2018, in Venice, La Repubblica delle Meraviglie will be inaugurated, the new project by the duo Vinci/Galesi (Sasha Vinci, 1980 and Maria Grazia Galesi 1988), curated by Diego Mantoan and Paola Tognon, conceived following the winning Sustainable Art Prize 2017, promoted by theCa' Foscari University of Venice, within the Ca' Foscari Sustainable programme, in collaboration with ArtVerona. The project is realized with the support of the aA29 Project Room gallery (Milan/Caserta.
The Republic of Wonders is a collective action and an itinerant performance along the calli, campi and canals of Venice, imagined and studied to create a space and time for reflection that evokes and re-enacts the stories and desires of the communities that built the ancient lagoon city. The site specific project is proposed as an action with a wide resonance with the aim of soliciting glances and reflections on the contradictions that belong to all contemporary geographies. Through the use of flowers, an empathetic and direct metaphor of beauty and transience, of energy and fragility, La Repubblica delle Meraviglie formalizes and restores the conflict that belongs to those who, without canceling the complexity of the present, imagine forms for a change aware towards a renewed future perspective, in line with the 17 UN objectives of the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development.
The Great Place for Humanity
The Vinci/Galesi duo takes up and develops for this project the research already started for Mutabis (Scicli) and La terra dei fiori (Reggia di Caserta) in which themes such as environmental, social and political sustainability have been tackled with originality and effectiveness. The Republic of Wonders, like Thomas More's excellent place, "aims to be a land in which to imagine forms of social renewal and sustainable development for a peaceful society, where culture dominates and regulates people's lives ... Our performance in Venice , a utopian city par excellence, symbolically becomes the moment in which the constitution of a land of freedom and participation begins". Reconnecting to the history, nature and symbolism of the lagoon area, La Repubblica delle Meraviglie is the place where every being finds himself infinite and capable of shining with that amazement that feeds consciences.
Five Acts towards a concrete and sustainable utopia
In an alternative dimension to reality and precisely starting from flowers, a symbol of rebirth and wonder as well as concrete work material for Vinci/Galesi, the Venetian performance is structured in five acts acted out in different places in the city. The deeds are the symbolic and cadenced representation of the constitution of La Repubblica delle Meraviglie, an ideal, unexpected and extraordinary place, where the human questions itself on the relationship between art and life and on the responsibility towards the existing. The Republic of Wonders is equipped with a sound harmony composed of several movements that recalls the symphonic genre, with a drape, symbols, a constitutional charter, a territory and a population. In the days preceding the performance, Venice and the Ca' Foscari University are the laboratory of this utopia: students and researchers are invited by the artists – through workshops and meetings – to reflect on five themes chosen as foundations for the constitution of La Repubblica: alteritas, pluralitas, communitas, humanitas, naturalia et mirabilia.
The day before the performance, the artists, the community of Ca' Foscari students, together with all those who will be involved in the project, will create the drape and other symbols with flowers, works that will be brought to the heart of Venice during the performance on May 22nd. In October 2018 the action will be visually returned in an exhibition hosted in the spaces of the University in conjunction with the new edition of ArtVerona. For the occasion, a catalog will be published which – like a travel diary – will document the steps of the project and will include the texts produced by the artists, curators, students and all the people involved in this creative process.
The performance by Vinci/Galesi is included in the program of the 2018 Sustainable Development Festival promoted by the Italian Alliance for Sustainable Development scheduled on a national scale on the same days.
The Vinci/Galesi project in Venice falls on the 150th year of the foundation of the Ca' Foscari University of Venice, which in 1868 was the first Italian institute to deal with commerce and one of the top three business schools in the world.
The symphony of La Repubblica delle Meraviglie, created by the artists in collaboration with the musician and composer Vincent Migliorisi, will be donated to the Ca' Foscari University, as if to underline the importance of the institutions dedicated to research and knowledge for the realization of this utopia.
The project is carried out with the support of the Mercato del Fiore Guarino and Kromato Edizioni.
Image: Vinci-Galesi: The Republic of Wonders, 2018
